


Interlude

by Corpium



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alcohol, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 13:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corpium/pseuds/Corpium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Which do you prefer, Jack? Controlled fear, or fear untempered?"</p><p>Jack settles into a fighting stance. "I prefer no fear at all, thanks very much."</p><p>Pitch smiles darkly. "Without fear, you'd be dead. Oh." He taps his index finger against his lips, feigning forgetfulness. "My mistake, you already are."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't add/rate this on goodreads or copy/duplicate this outside of personal use. If you'd like to know why I don't want it on goodreads, see my post [here](http://perceptions3key.tumblr.com/post/114890656994/i-have-a-request-regarding-my-fanfiction-and-ill).

On the first anniversary of Pitch's defeat, North breaks out the vodka. Bunny scoffs and returns back to his burrow, only to return with a bottle of "grog" (whatever that is; Jack wouldn't know because he doesn't touch it until after he's completely hammered), and, smiling secretively at him in the warm glow of North's home, Tooth teaches Jack how to make a _real_ martini.

 

Out of everything, it's the martini that does it, Jack thinks some hours later.

 

He's not sure exactly when he left, but he vaguely remembers, amidst the games and reminiscing and exhilarating haze of companionship, hearing the Wind whistling outside, wanting to join in. She couldn't join them in this, Jack knew, so after several hours of contentment that he won't be able to  remember come morning, he ends up outside, laying on his back in the Wind's cool embrace and letting her take him wherever she wills.

 

She drops him off on the icy roof of a cozy resort somewhere in the Alps, and Jack knows she's trying to give him a message: _slow down_ , _rest_ , _they're not going to disappear just because you look away._ "You know I can't do that, " he tells her, and she begins to die down.  

 

Being believed in by children and being valued by spirits has been the most elating experience he's ever known. It's also been the most exhausting.

 

An idea is like a virus, he thinks, spreading lightning-fast throughout the world uncontrollably, but belief is more fragile, more difficult to attain. Spreading the idea of him is easy; building the belief is not.

 

The other Guardians have believers spread across the world, whereas his are still mostly located in the Northeast of the U.S. He's starting to get more in the Midwest and South of the U.S. and the very border of Canada, but it's slow-going. He's getting there, he thinks, but for now his existence is still perilous. He can't afford to rest.

 

He stares up at the Moon and frowns, the warm haze of alcohol fading into melancholy. "I'm still not sure what to think of you," he tells him.

 

The Man in the Moon doesn't answer. Finally, after so long, Jack doesn't mind.

 

Movement flickers out of the corner of his eye, heading towards the resort, and Jack leaps to his feet, alert. He sways forward unintentionally, his stomach dropping, and catches himself on his staff. He's not exactly in tip top shape for defending children from evil, but it can't be helped.

 

He drops off the roof and lands on a small terrace one floor down. He looks around, listening. The Wind goes still and quiet, but the night remains silent and unmoving. Something weighs heavy in the air around Jack, though, and he knows he's not alone.

 

He turns toward the frosted glass doors of the terrace and tries to peer through them. A dark, blurry shape shifts slightly behind them, and Jack wonders….

 

He eases open the unlocked door –or rather, attempts to ease it open. Instead what happens is he pulls it open a little too quickly, stopping it from opening all the way only by knocking into it with his shoulder not once but twice, once on the outside of it and once on the inside, and by the time he's inside, the door's half open and he's stumbling into the wall just in time to see Pitch run a nightmare through with a sword of midnight black sand.

 

The nightmare explodes with a shrill scream, dissipating into tiny, glittering rivulets of corrupted sand that flow into Pitch's robes like streams of ethereal ink. Jack watches in silence as Pitch turns away from the bed closest to the terrace to face him, eyeing Jack with disdain.

 

"And here I thought you'd be too inebriated to notice anything," Pitch sighs. "Pity."

 

Jack blinks, and in the split second his eyes are closed, Pitch disappears, a flicker of disappearing shadow the only sign he was ever there. "Wait!" Jack shouts, but he's too late.

 

The child-sized figure in the bed shifts, and Jack covers his mouth guiltily and begins to back out of the suite. A long-fingered hand curls over his shoulder, halting him instantly. Jack twists/stumbles around to look up into Pitch's unamused golden eyes.

 

Pitch keeps one steadying hand on Jack's shoulder and reaches over his shoulder to close the door behind Jack. The Wind tickles Jack's face, comforting him with her presence.

 

"All alone, Jack?" Pitch drawls, taking his hand off Jack's shoulder in order to cross his arms. The loss of it makes Jack shift his weight and lean more heavily on his staff. "Not exactly safe for you to be out like this, is it? You never know who might find you."

 

The urge to respond with some sort of witty retort comes a little too slowly for Jack to register, so instead all he says is, "Why did you do that?"

 

"Do what?" Pitch asks, narrowing his eyes at Jack.

 

"You know what."

 

Pitch snorts lightly. "To further my evil plans."

 

Jack really wishes he hadn't drunk so much at the Guardians' little reunion. "That doesn't make sense," he says slowly.

 

"Doesn't it?" Pitch asks distantly, eyes flicking away from Jack. After a moment, he meets Jack's eyes again, gaze contemplative and knowing. "Which do you prefer, Jack? Controlled fear, or fear untempered?"

 

Jack settles into a fighting stance. "I prefer no fear at all, thanks very much."

 

Pitch smiles darkly. "Without fear, you'd be dead. Oh." He taps his index finger against his lips, feigning forgetfulness. "My mistake, you already are."

 

Jack grits his teeth, and ice spreads up and down the staff away from his hands. "No one needs fear. No one needs _you._ "

 

The smile falls from Pitch's face. "One day you'll change your mind. You'll search me out with your tail tucked between your legs, and you'll beg on your knees for me to come back. Perhaps, if you're lucky, I will."

 

Jack growls wordlessly and takes a step forward, only to miscalculate  and stumble forward into Pitch's body.

 

Pitch grimaces and pushes him away. "Goodbye, Jack." He begins to sink into the dark wood of the terrace, shadows spreading across the ground like spilled blood as Jack teeters again, off-balance and upset.

 

The Wind picks up with a scolding whistle that tugs at Jack's guilt, and, on pure impulse, Jack reaches out before Pitch can disappear. "Wait. Please," he bites out.

 

Pitch freezes for a moment; then the next he's looming over Jack and crowding the winter spirit back against the glass wall. Jack hits the wall with a small thump and swallows stiffly, blinking up at Pitch, who glares down at him and asks sharply, "Why?"

 

Frost creeps out from Jack's hands, climbing further up the staff from one and spreading across the glass from his other. The Wind dies down again, leaving Jack to deal with this on his own.

 

"Why, Jack?" Pitch pushes.

 

"Because we do need you, don't we?" Jack asks even as he realizes it. "But –I don't know why," he thinks aloud. "Fear holds people back," he says desperately. He's on the brink of realization, but he doesn't want to be. He doesn't want to know if he's _wrong_. If he's always been wrong.

 

Pitch peers down at him, thoughtful. "You should know better than most that that's not a bad thing."

 

Jack looks down, shoulders slumping. He leans against the wall. "The other Guardians won't let you come back," he says.

 

He looks up just in time to see Pitch shrug with a wry quirk of the lips. "But you will."

 

Jack's eyes flicker away again, heart heavy in his chest like the dead weight it is. "I never said that," he mutters.

 

For a moment, there's silence. Then warm knuckles graze the skin of Jack's cheek. "I'll be seeing you, Jack," Pitch's voice murmurs, but when Jack looks up, the only thing in front of him is empty space.

 

Jack stands there for a moment, trying to parse out what just happened, but already the memory seems surreal and blurry. He looks up, and the Man in the Moon offers no answers.

 

A tiny snowflake lands on Jack's nose, and he glances up at the western skies to see rolling clouds in the distance. The Wind picks up again, howling and beating against him.

 

"All right, all right," he tells her. He walks forward to the edge of the terrace, staff tapping lightly against the wood, then steps onto the railing. Still unbalanced from the fading alcohol, he lets himself slip forward and fall into the Wind's embrace.

 

She takes him far, far away, and he begins to drift off as they reach the ocean. Just before he drops into a much-needed sleep, he says to her, "I always did like roller coasters."  

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback always much appreciated. Thanks for reading!
> 
> My tumblr is [perceptions3key](http://perceptions3key.tumblr.com/). Stop by. Say hi. Ask questions. Confide in me. Sell your soul. Enjoy the fandom and bad jokes.


End file.
